Background
Green, Joseph was born in 1706 in probably Boston.
Green, Joseph was born in 1706 in probably Boston.
Graduated from Harvard, 1726.
Green has been called "the foremost wit of his day." He often exchanged parodies and satiric poems with another Boston wit, Mather Byles. Joseph Green"s satirical poetry includes "To Mr. B Occasioned by His Verse" and "To Mr.
Smibert on Seeing His Pictures".
He also wrote "The Poet’s Lamentation for the Loss of his Cat, which he us’d to call his Muse", "On Mr. B—s’s singing an Hymn of his own composing", "To the Author of the Poetry in the last Weekly Journal", "A True Impartial Account of the Celebration of the Prince of Orange’s Nuptials at Portsmouth", "Inscription under Revd.
Jn. Checkley’s Picture", “A fig for your learning, I tell you the Town” and “Hail! Doctorate––p––t of wondrous fame”.
Green"s "Entertainment for a Winter"s Evening" is a satire on Boston"s first Masonic procession, held in 1749. Green was one of the members who signed the attestation of veracity regarding Phillis Wheatley"s authorship of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.
A Tory, he fled America during the American Revolution and was named in the Massachusetts Banishment Acting of 1778. In his will, he left 100 pounds to his slave, Plato.
Married Elizabeth Green.